"It's shaping up that way. In this day and age, to be competitive for three, four, five years — I know they got two championships and are seven games away from a third," Gretzky said. "If they win this year, we can really start focusing on that. It's something pretty special."

"It's harder to be a dynasty in this day and age with the salary-cap system. Your homework and your scouting has to be flawless and they seem to have done a very good job with that.

"And you have to get a little bit lucky," he continued. "They got (Jonathan) Toews and (Patrick) Kane in the first round and Duncan Keith, and they can build their team around those three guys. It's a nice squad to watch, that's for sure. It's going to be an unreal series."